“Because I am. But that has nothing to do with being frustrated. It has to do with being a complete mess of a person who simply does not measure up. That is a fact. I don’t belong with you here. I belong…”
“Where?” he asked. “In a cottage? With flowers? If it will make you stop fussing, I’ll have one built on the property. Perhaps then I can have a moment of peace without you whining about how miserable you are.” The brush caught in a tangle as he scolded her.
“Ouch!” She shied away and turned to him. “If you’re going to pull so, I’d rather you didn’t brush it at all.”
“Turn back around.” He waved the brush at her until she complied. “I wish you wouldn’t fret. The condition of your home and property means less than nothing to me, Josephine.”
“Because your own is so grand.”
“No, because my regard for you is not based on your fortune or the value of your holdings.”
“Your regard for me?” Her voice trembled with indignation. “You only wed me because Lord Baxter forced you, so spare me your facile lies.”
He stopped mid-stroke and palmed the hair brush. “Come with me, then,” he said, guiding her off the bed.
“Come with you where?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”
“I should think that’s obvious. I’m going to spank you.”
“What! Why?”
When she tried to resist him, he lifted her bodily and hauled her toward a chair before the fire. “Because you’ve done enough sulking for one day, and you called me a liar just now, to which I take great offense.”
He pulled her across his lap, gathering her arms and legs and tucking them into submission. The more she tried to extricate herself, the more she realized his size and power far outstripped hers. Oh, she didn’t want to be spanked. This day had been awful enough with everything else that had happened.
“Be still,” he said. “When you earn a punishment, you’re going to get it, one way or another.”
“But I haven’t done anything! I’ll scream if you don’t stop. I’ll scream until the servants break down the door.”
“They won’t break down the door when they hear the sounds coming from inside. They’ll assume you’re being disciplined and they won’t interfere, although they may mill about and listen if you make enough of a fuss. Now, I suggest you lie still and submit to this paddling, or things will go much worse for you.”
“I don’t know how they could go worse than they are right now,” she said, trying to wiggle away.
“Then you don’t understand me very well. I’m going to give you to the count of three to stop flailing and kicking. If you don’t, I can’t be responsible for what happens after that. One.” He paused, holding her struggling figure. “Two.”
Before he could utter “three,” she went still across his lap. “I think you are horrible,” she said. “I can’t believe you would do this.”
“Can’t you? That’s strange, because I’ve spanked you twice already before.” He gave her some warm up smacks, until her buttocks tingled very uncomfortably. “As I’ve told you, behavior has consequences. You’ve been cross and ungrateful. You’ve snapped at me and named me a liar when I was only trying to be kind. I don’t behave that way toward you.”
“No, you only spank me as if I were a child.”
“When you act like a child, you’ll be spanked like one.” He corralled one errant leg, pressing it down into position. “Keep your toes on the floor, young lady. The more you resist, the longer this will go on. Now, you shall be paddled with the back of your own hair brush, and don’t think I won’t do such a thing again if the situation calls for it.”
With that warning, he landed the first proper stroke. She screamed and arched off his knees, pulling away from him to cover her bottom. The hard, round back of the brush seemed to leave a brand upon her skin. “That hurts too much! Even worse than the switching! You can’t really mean to spank me like this.”
“Move your hand.”
“Please! Warren, I’m sorry.”
“Move your hand or I’ll move it for you.”
With a plaintive sob, she moved her hand from her bare cheeks and braced it against the floor.
“No,” he said, on second thought, “you had better give it to me to hold out of the way.” When he had both her hands secured at the small of her back, he commenced with a very firm paddling, smacking first one cheek and then the other in an alternating pattern. Josephine wailed and kicked her legs, even though she didn’t mean to. It was impossible to be still with the fiery blows stinging her arse cheeks.
“Ouch. Oww.
Ohhh!
” Whenever her toes came off the floor, he gave a tap to the back of her thighs to tame them down again. She jerked and tugged but he kept her in check, delivering a steady tattoo of cracks until her skin felt like it might explode. Her protests for mercy gave way to apologies and finally to whimpers, when she couldn’t find the wherewithal to fight anymore. At that point, he put down the hair brush and smoothed his palm across her red hot cheeks.
“Now,” he said, pulling her up to stand before him. “You’ll apologize for calling me a liar and whining about everything in a most unladylike way.”
She tried to reach behind her to soothe her throbbing cheeks, but he held her hands at her waist so she couldn’t do it. “Don’t rub your bottom,” he said. “Apologize for your poor behavior, or, if you feel you haven’t sufficiently learned your lesson, you may bend back over my lap.”
She couldn’t bear to do that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I whined and called you a liar.”
“You know, I only meant to be kind when I took you to Maitland, and when I tried to comfort you afterward. You had no cause to cut up at me, even if you aren’t feeling quite happy about everything.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He let go of her hands and drew her against him. “Go ahead and cry a bit, if it will make you feel better.”
“I don’t want to cry.” Even as she said it, tears flooded her cheeks. “You h-hurt me.”
“I disciplined you,” he corrected her. “There is a difference, which you’ll understand in time. If I only meant to hurt you, I could have done a lot worse.”
She pressed her fingers against her eyes. “But you did hurt me. Even now, it hurts.”
“Corporal discipline is a method of molding behavior. It hurts, but not for the sake of hurting. There’s a purpose. You learned something, didn’t you, through this spanking?”
“Yes!” She turned her head and sniffled against his shoulder. “I learned that I don’t like being paddled with the back of a hair brush.”
“Exactly. You’ve learned to avoid unpleasant consequences by exhibiting better behavior.” He held her close and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I think deep down inside, you want to be made to behave. Deep down inside you want nothing more than to be a proper English lady whom other people respect, and I am going to make you that lady, Josephine.”
“You won’t be able to,” she said miserably.
“Oh goodness, let’s not start all over again. Go put away your brush, at least for the moment.” She obeyed, reaching behind her to rub her aching bottom a time or two. She couldn’t tell if it made things better or worse. Meanwhile, Warren watched her from the bed with his head propped on his hand. She waited across the room, staring at his thickening cock. He beckoned her with a crook of his finger. “Come on, then. Let’s not have any more sulking nonsense.”
She crossed to him with a tiny bit of sulkiness, but not enough for him to fetch the hair brush again. Did he wish for love play now? She was tired and confused, and in more than a little pain. When she was near enough, he drew her naked form beneath him, settling his hips against hers. He took her hands and pulled them over her head, tracing his fingers along the delicate inner skin of her forearms and stopping at her wrists. “I want you to leave your hands right there. You’ve been a very naughty girl, and now you must let me do whatever I like, to put me in a better humor.”
She stared up at him. “What are you going to do?”
“Nice things.” He moved his hips, nestling the head of his shaft between her tightly closed legs. Her hands came down to check him but he pushed them back up. “Are you going to resist me?” he asked softly. “That is probably unwise.”
After a moment, she shook her head. “I’m not resisting. It’s just that I don’t know… I don’t know how to feel.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’ve lectured me and spanked me and made me feel awful. I’m not sure I’m ready to be close to you. Not like this.”
He leaned down to whisper a soft breath against one flagrantly hard nipple. “Whether you’re ready or not, I plan to have my way with you, darling.” As he suckled her breasts, he ran one palm down her thigh and shoved her legs apart. “Leave them open wide for me, or you’ll be paddled again. You must allow me to do as I like. Marital rights and all that.”
He trapped her beneath him, holding her open with his knees. The more she tried to close her legs, the more he pressed them open, until she desisted with a frustrated sigh. Marital rights! She wished she’d never heard of the concept, especially when her body responded—quite against her will—to his sensual manipulations. He squeezed her breasts and pinched her nipples, and then kissed her as he positioned himself between her legs. She expected him to enter her at once,
wanted
him to enter her at once, but instead he drove shallowly against her, in and out, just the tip caressing her folds and the little pearl she continuously tried to thrust against him. He smiled at her frustrated noises and held her wrists against the headboard.
“When will you come inside?” she asked when she couldn’t bear it anymore.
“When I want to, Lady Warren. Not a moment before.”
Her breath came in sharp pants as she gazed at him. How humiliating, to be teased and toyed with today of all days. She gritted her teeth and scowled at him, and tried not to respond to his nearness and heat, and his scent, and his caresses, but she was past the point of coldness. She burned for him to fill her up and chase away this nagging want.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, tracing his thumbs across her brow and then cupping her chin. “It’s all right to enjoy this.”
“I don’t enjoy it,” she said with a pout.
“You’re a liar. Shall I punish you again?”
But he was already punishing her with this teasing, and his knowing, mocking smiles. “Don’t move your hands,” he reminded her. “Leave them against the headboard, if you please.”
“I don’t please.
Oh…
” Her whining cut off in a sigh as he entered her slowly. Halfway in, he withdrew from her again.
“Oh, don’t,” she said. “You’re being horrible.”
“Sometimes you’re horrible too,” he murmured. “Perhaps this is like for like.”
“You want to drive me mad.”
“In some ways, yes. Do you want me?”
She bit her lip and gazed at him. She wanted him more than anything, but she hated that he made her admit it. But if she didn’t admit it, she knew he’d leave her unsatisfied, and she’d hate that more. “Please,” she whispered.
“You want me all the way inside you?”
“Yes, please.” She twisted her hips, arching to him. He caught her swollen pearl between his fingertips and pinched it until she groaned.
“How does that feel? Do you like it?”
“No,” she whimpered.
“But you’re awfully wet. Are you wet for me, kitten? Do you want me very badly?”
She hid her face against her arm, and clenched her fists upon the headboard.
“If you don’t answer, you won’t get what you want.” He stroked his cock, regarding her with a speculative expression. “Are you wet for me, Josephine?”
“Yes, I’m wet for you,” she said. “You know I am. I don’t understand the point of putting me through this agony.”
“The point is that you make those lovely noises, and your entire body strains for my touch.” He flicked her stiff, pointed nipples, first one and then the other. She gasped at the sharp bursts of pain. “Ask me to take you. Beg me. ‘
Please take me, Warren.
’”
“Please take me, Warren. Please.” She beat her hands against the headboard, and yes, her body strained for his possession. Humiliation burned, but desire burned hotter.
He gave a low chuckle and caught her in an embrace, pushing her legs wider with his knees. She let go of the headboard and clung to him, having reached the limits of her submission. When he pressed inside her she thought she would lose her mind from the hot, tight pleasure, and his lustful force as he buried himself to the hilt. She clenched around him, hooking her legs behind his hips. He took her deep and hard, squeezing her sore, punished buttocks as he moved against her.
“Is this what you wanted?” he asked in between thrusts. “Your husband’s cock filling you up?”
“Yes, you knew I did,” she said a bit accusingly.
He grinned as he thrust in her again. “We’ll have to practice the art of naughty talk at some later date.”
Josephine didn’t want to practice anything at the moment, except finding her release after so much teasing. Warren drove her across the bed, pinching, sucking, pounding into her, and she clung to him, arching her hips to take him deeper. He withdrew with a growl and flipped her over. She nearly toppled off the bed, but he gripped her about the waist and set her on her hands and knees.
“Don’t stop,” she cried. “Oh, please touch me. Please hold me.”
He kissed her shoulder and her nape, and licked the racing pulse at her neck as he twisted his fingers in her hair. “I’ve got you. I’ve no intention of stopping now.” He slid his other hand down to stroke her quim, teasing her to a frenzied peak. She ought not to like such abandoned and animalistic activities. What did it say about her, that the more wantonly they coupled, the more pleasure she felt? She clenched around his hot, thick length, begging for more. Begging him to go deeper, and faster. When she finally peaked, he smacked her hot, reddened bottom in time with the pulses of her satisfaction.
It both thrilled and terrified her, the way she gave herself up to pure debauchery, and the possessive urgency of his will.
By the time they arrived back to the Baxters’ manor, all the house guests were gone. Josephine was glad. She couldn’t have faced any of them after the way she’d spent the last few days. Or the last few miles in the carriage before they arrived, for that matter. She thought the evidence of Lord Warren’s carnalities must be written all over her, on her lips and hands and bottom and knees. He enticed her to do such bawdy things, things she would never have imagined. What if they knew?